Lutz Bachmann wrote on Facebook on Wednesday that the trial will open in Dresden on April 19. The district court in Dresden confirmed the date, news agency dpa reported.

Dresden prosecutors said when they filed charges in October that, with the posts, Bachmann was trying to incite Germans against refugees.

Mr Bachmann co-founded Pegida, short for Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West, which has staged weekly protests in Dresden and spawned similar though less successful groups elsewhere.

He disputes the authenticity of the Facebook posts and wrote that the trial was "purely politically motivated" and meant to discredit him and Pegida.